


Andromeda

by quondam



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 13:00:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10536960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quondam/pseuds/quondam
Summary: Shepard finds out about the Andromeda Initiative and is less than pleased. Garrus helps to change her mind.





	

“Have you heard of the Andromeda Initiative?”

Garrus has barely set foot inside her cabin, the doors still hissing as they fully open, when Shepard’s already started speaking. He’s only caught half of it.

“Initiative?”

“The Andromeda Initiative. Did you ever hear anything about it when you were on Palaven?”

He’s tired, the kind that even makes his eyelids hurt, but it’s all standard fare as of late. Garrus merely rubs the side of his fist to his eye as he toes off his shoes and takes the few steps down into her living space. Still, he tries to search the back of his head for a memo or a conversation he’d overheard. His mind comes up blank.

“Not that I can recall. Is this a trick question, Shepard—am I supposed to know?”

There’s the twitch of a smile at the corner of her mouth, but it hardly lasts more than the blink of an eye. She doesn’t look at him, her eyes still focused down on a data pad in front of her, yet there’s enough he can read to gather some insight.

Her food on the small coffee table is nearly untouched, fork still speared through a noodle like she’d become distracted mid-bite. That uniform he’d seen her wearing throughout the course of the day is tossed onto the bed, not yet properly hung and put away. And Shepard, she flexes and relaxes her left hand almost rhythmically, a telling tick he knows in her by now. She’s irritated. And angry.

It’s going to be a long night.

“They built these ships and sent them out to Andromeda to try to find a new home,” she finally answers, giving little away.

“Andromeda? And just what are they going to do on their journey?” A laugh exits his throat without his permission. “Even Liara will be nearly dead by time they get there.”

“They’re in cryo, apparently. It’ll take six hundred years, give or take.”

Garrus extends his hand for the data pad she’d been reading from and Shepard readily passes it on, then leans back into the couch, sinking into it as she crosses her legs at the knee. Her eyes remain on him as he reads.

“Huh,” is all he can manage. “And it’s not just humans?”

Her arms cross and head shakes, jaw tight. “Nope.”

Oh, he hears that little pop of the ‘P’ even in his translator. She means business now. Then, he considers her answer, his head cocked. “Turian?”

“ _Yep_ ,” and there it is again. She nearly vibrates with that pent up irritation, and he doesn’t know if his own is organic or if he, as in most things, is just feeding off her energy. They’re halves of the same whole these days.

“Son of a varren,” he says.

“Those motherfuckers,” she confirms, escalating.

“Begrudged me anything I asked for to prepare for the Reapers—“

“—Think of all that money and manpower that could’ve been funneled into saving this fucking galaxy—“

“—But oh no! Let’s build some ships for an impossible mission to another damn—“

“—And now they’re off sightseeing while we’re stuck here—“

“—Cleaning up the fucking mess we tried to warn everyone about!”

They’re both out of breath and pacing the room by time they stop, eyes meeting. Like their words were just tangled together, they laugh in synchronicity.

“To be fair,” Garrus says finally when Shepard has calmed, her hand to her side where he knows she usually gets a stitch of pain when she laughs too much. “They’re not sightseeing right now. They’re popsicles.”

It sets her off again and she winces between the laughter. “Stop,” she breathes. “Enough.”

“You mean you don’t want to be a—“ But Shepard puts her hand over his mouth, and he’s done as he’d hoped. She’s smiling.

“Come on,” he wraps her up in his arms, and she automatically nestles her head against his cowl, fingers curled over the ridge. “I was only thinking of asking you to go in halfsies with me on a new eel for the fishtank to declare our love, but that’s because I didn’t know sharing a freezer together for half a millennium was an option.”

“Ugh,” she feigns the sound of disgust with remarkable believability, “I only shacked up with you because I knew at least one of us would be dead soon.”

“Yeah, avoids the whole awkward break up conversation.”

“You know I like to plan ahead.”

It’s not like Shepard to stay still for long. Even after their coupling, she barely grants him a few moments in the aftermath to savor the feel of her warmth against him before she’s up and about, a trip to the bathroom, pulling on underwear, tidying up. Her sudden stillness now is telling and though he wants to pry, to pull her out of her own head, he takes a second just to keep her close and enjoy the rhythmic sensation of her breathing.

The moment is only a flicker in their lives but it feels like eternity, like he can see down the long road of their lives together, even if their future isn’t as sure as that.

“What’s really bothering you about it?” He finally asks after brushing his forehead down to the top of her head, breathing in the scent of hair that’s a distinct mix of soap and sweat. “After everything that’s happened, you can’t tell me you’re surprised they kept this quiet.”

Garrus feels her fingers tightening, digging into him for a second, then it’s gone, only the light pressure remaining.

“I just…” Her weight shifts as she sighs. “There’s an N7 in charge of some things on the human side, Ryder. He’s older, seen a lot. I met him after N school, even worked with him once. I get the reasons why he’s going, but still…“

She stops and Garrus rubs his palm over the breadth of her back, encouraging.

“…I wish it had been me.”

He nuzzles her again just like the last, then lets her breathe. Garrus wants to make a quip, can feel the words like ‘ _You really dislike me so much you can’t wait to put a galaxy between us_.’ It’s that sarcastic wit he’s most comfortable with in any situation lately—it eases the tension, deflects from the severity of their situation, allows him to dodge and avoid. This isn’t one of those times.

“Way I see it, he’s in charge of how many? Tens of thousands? More? Of lives out there, to find them some place new to settle down. It’s an important job. But here… there are billions here already—and not that I’m doubting the training of anyone that left on that mission—but Spirits Shepard, you’re the key to this. Without you, any hope of defeating the Reapers goes too. So I’ll be the one to say it first for everyone else: thank you for being _here_.”

She’s still again, and for a moment he wonders if he’s said the right thing. Perhaps she had just wanted silence and someone to commiserate with. Shepard lifts her head, though, and sets the width of her palm to his mandible and cheek, and the look she gives him tells him that, for once, he’s done everything right.

“But don’t you want to see what’s out there?” She asks him, allowing space to come between them though not breaking contact fully. Her hand rubs at his arm.

“I know what’s out there. It’ll be Relay 314 all over again, except this time we’d _all_ be the humans barging on in without introducing ourselves and I _really_ don’t want to know what firepower the fine creatures of Andromeda have to offer.”

Shepard lets him go, backing up only a few steps towards the bed. She grasps the hem of her shirt, tugs it up over head and lets it find a temporary home on the floor. There’s nothing on underneath and she pays it no mind, like it’s the most casual thing in the world.

“ _Yeah_ ,” she replies, and he knows she’s only pretending to agree with him. Her words sound pleading in a way not too different from the kind she does when he’s inside her, “but what if they’re hot? Like, really really hot.”

He almost lets loose the kind of unrestrained laughter she brings out in him more than any other being in that galaxy—the universe, even—but he catches hold, keeps it in to play along. “Now your real agenda comes out.”

“Well it’s not _just_ that,” she says with a coy smile. “Think about getting to be the first people from the Milky Way to set foot on those planets—“

“And finding something bigger and badder than a Thresher Maw.” He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing as he does it, undressing himself as he stands in front of her.

“Finding out if there’s any other intelligent life out there—“ Shepard steps from her pants.

“And realizing they’ve got some super bacteria that’s going to eat all our flesh off.” He loses his as well.

“We could scope the place out ahead of time, pick the best plot of land for ourselves.” Shepard slips her thumbs into the waistband of her underwear but Garrus catches her hands and replaces his fingers with his own. He doesn’t slide them off, not just yet.

“Then get accused of corruption by the very people we led to their new homeland, have them mutiny and kill us.”

She leans in just until he feels the hint of her breasts against his carapace. It’s a light sensation, barely there, but it sets him alight. It hadn’t always been that way—at first it had been nerves and the anxiety of the unknown that had excited him. It’s just her now, that human body and all it’s unique human details that thrill him just like his own species once had. More and more, every time they come together like this.

“You’re no fun.”

“On the contrary,” and he pushes the last layer between them down, knows they’re gone as she maneuvers just slightly, stepping out of them. “I’m _lots_ of fun.”

Shepard smiles, eyes only for him, and sets her hand to the back of his neck as she presses her mouth to his. Her actions are an agreement, he likes to believe.

He takes hold and lifts her under the thighs, feels her tightening them at his waist, and he’s sure he could stand like this all day. The lightness of her body, especially without her armor, had almost startled him that first time, but now it’s a comfort, as though he could protect her from all harm if only she stayed close. And he intends to keep her close all night.

“Are you? Really?” She teases.

Garrus tips them forward with a careful balancing act, and it’s a smooth action that he lays her down on the bed, one hand to support him on the mattress surface, while the other curls behind her waist, and then he’s inside her. He buries himself as deep as he can go, elevating her hips just enough to perfect the angle, and though he wants to touch his forehead to hers, to feel the heat of her breath on his face, he doesn’t.

Instead, he prefers to be just far enough away to watch her through it, to savor every moment on that expressive face. Her mouth hangs open, eyes shut, brow furrowed, and then she moans. Shepard’s fingers dig into him.

He doesn’t move, not until he sees a roll of her shoulders and her tongue peek out before biting her lower lip. Her eyes reopen and her cheeks are flushed pink, _blushing_ she calls it. It’s one of the more human sights he can think of. And he loves it.

“Don’t be jealous,” she says breathily, voice just above a whisper. “I’d probably let you watch.”

Joking as they are, Garrus withdraws and presses into her, again, again.

“I'm just not exotic enough for you anymore,” he says, then buries his face into her neck, licking at the saltiness of her skin. Her hand at the back of his skull is intimate, finger tips light.

“What kind of pathfinder would I be,” and because it’s just like Shepard to try to have a conversation in the middle of sex, Garrus’ hips greet hers a little more forcefully. He hears the slightest inflection of her words when he does. “If I didn’t properly say hello to our new friends?”

“Hello?” He laughs, thrusts stuttering, but then Shepard pushes him up until he obeys and their positions are reversed, her on top. “Is that what we’ve been doing this whole time?”

She nods, that red of her cheeks creeping down her throat, spreading across her chest and breasts already. Shepard doesn’t take him back inside of her just yet, instead lets her cunt press over the length of him against his belly. Her lips kiss his mandible.

“Hello,” she says, simply, plain as day, like they haven’t been fucking this entire time. Like they’re strangers and it’s years earlier.

“Hello,” he repeats. It’s a sad thought to imagine back then, only because it means the loss of what they have now.

Shepard shifts and she kisses the middlemost part of his cowl. “Hello.” Down she continues to go, and he mourns the absence of her wet heat against his cock, but then she’s pressing her lips to the naked skin of his waist with the flick of her tongue. “Hello,” this time it’s not as innocuous.

He’s smiling by time she ventures to her ultimate goal, knowing full well her intentions. Shepard kisses the tip of him, the base in her hand. “ _Hello_ ,” she says, nothing like when she'd started this game.

“You’re right,” he admits, and relaxes where he is, elbows propping him up on the bed, as Shepard takes him into her mouth, only barely at first, then swallows him as deep as she’s ever gone. The first time she’d done this… well, he’d only seen it in vids between two humans. He’d had no hope that she would do it to him, or that it would feel _so_ fucking good. “I’m positive you’d own the galaxy after just saying hello.”

A hum is his only answer from her, and she takes him just close enough to that edge, a line she’s careful not to cross entirely before she releases him from between her lips. When she returns to him, he can taste both of them on her mouth.

Garrus sits up with her, and she straddles him, beginning where they left off. It takes hardly any time for each of them to find release, and Garrus keeps her close as he gets his, moans the pleasure against her throat.

Neither are eager to move apart and so they linger there, locked together, her fingers soothing over his fringe, his mandibles, the plates of his face, like he’s delicate and not alien at all. He’s content to just watch her as she does.

“I’ve decided I’m glad I didn’t go,” she states suddenly.

His head shakes just barely, mandibles widening as he smiles. “I’m so relieved. What changed?”

“For starters, I don’t think you share very well.”  


**Author's Note:**

> Written before Andromeda's release, so some details might not line up exactly correct.


End file.
